113 A Man Vanishes

Discuss releases by Eureka and Masters of Cinema and the films on them.
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Peacock
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2008 7:47 pm
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#26 Post by Peacock » Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:53 pm

Basically Oshima discusses the negative influence the film could potentially have, as many people were solely discussing its technique; he goes on to argue that Imamura began making the film as a documentary, and that partly as a result the film has barely any theme - that Imamura began the film hoping to find the theme along the way, and when he realized this wouldn't happen, he went straight into fiction and ended the film with the idea "I don't understand the truth", which Oshima argues isn't a theme nor is it anything worth making a film about; he says the only thing good about the film is that it is charming in its attempt to find a theme within itself. Sorry if this is all very messy, you'll be able to read it yourself soon, in the book I have it takes up three large pages, so it'll make more sense once read in full!

I haven't seen this film yet btw and despite Oshima's criticisms, it still sounds very interesting.. can't wait for this release!

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#27 Post by knives » Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:55 pm

Maybe I'm just easily charmed, but having the theme being more or less finding one is really interesting sounding to me.

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#28 Post by zedz » Wed Sep 07, 2011 7:29 pm

I'll look forward to reading the piece, but it sounds like this criticism points up some of the important differences between Oshima's and Imamura's film practice, since Oshima's filmmaking approach is so overwhelmingly driven by the theme / subject of a specific project that he tends to reinvent his filmmaking approach accordingly from film to film. It's very hard to imagine Oshima embarking on a film without having a crystal clear idea beforehand of what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, whereas Imamura's approach seems to me much more settled in his established style and exploratory, which is how you can end up with an amazing one-of-a-kind film like A Man Vanishes.

evillights
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#29 Post by evillights » Wed Sep 07, 2011 11:07 pm

Peacock's synopsis is pretty accurate; zedz's inference is pretty on-target.

The film speaks for itself, and the Ôshima piece is included as a constructive thought-piece. It's up to the viewer to decide which sensibility they lean toward personally. My guess is that most viewers will tend sympathetic toward the Imamura side of the equation. The nearest correlative would be the debate between Antonioni and Luigi Chiarini that we reprinted in the booklet for LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE. In this instance, there's no response from Imamura, but, again — the film speaks for itself.

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Documaniaque
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 6:06 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#30 Post by Documaniaque » Thu Sep 08, 2011 2:57 pm

This is a little off-topic, but anyone in Paris next week might be interested to know a small cinema is showing 3 of his rarer 70's documentaries: Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute (1973), Mikikanhei o otte or En suivant ces soldats qui ne sont pas revenus - N°2: La Thaïlande (1971) and Muhomatsu kokyo e kaeru or La brute revient au pays natal (1973).

According to this blog they're all coming out on (French) DVD in Spring 2012.

Their edition of A Man Vanishes coming out this Nov. also has another of his documentaries as a bonus: Bubuan no Kaizoku or Les Pirates de Bubuan (1972)

fred
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:28 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#31 Post by fred » Fri Sep 09, 2011 4:02 am

Documaniaque wrote:This is a little off-topic
Maybe off-topic, but fantastic news! I can't help but be greedy though and hope that History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess will also finally get a proper video release.

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Documaniaque
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 6:06 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#32 Post by Documaniaque » Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:36 pm

fred wrote:
Documaniaque wrote:This is a little off-topic
Maybe off-topic, but fantastic news! I can't help but be greedy though and hope that History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess will also finally get a proper video release.
That's also at the top of my wish list, and I'm surprised it's not being released in lieu of the the other ones, which are less well known than History.

Saw Karayuki-san yesterday; it was most excellent. Not as aesthetically refined as History (made in color for TV, with a pretty wobbly hand-held camera at that), but still fascinating and moving. About kidnapped Japanese women sent all over Asia as "Japanese export products" and forced into prostitution, with some degree of official complicity, in the 1910s.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#33 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:17 pm

Documaniaque wrote:About kidnapped Japanese women sent all over Asia as "Japanese export products" and forced into prostitution, with some degree of official complicity, in the 1910s.
Naruse clearly invokes this form of "trade" (without explanation, presuming his audience would know about it, I assume) in his Apart From You, where the individual is "selling herself" (under compulsion of circumstances)rather than being kidnapped.

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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#34 Post by manicsounds » Mon Oct 17, 2011 7:39 am

review at dvdverdict but not a really enlightening one...

Hail_Cesar
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:20 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#35 Post by Hail_Cesar » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:55 pm

I saw this film a month ago in an Art theater guild retrospective and they did talked about Oshima's reception of it which was extremely negative. He was angry about the non-ethic way to make film. I don't know what is written in the MoC booklet but if I correctly remember, the ATG specialist said the film was intended to be a documentary but Imamura felt the film was going nowhere and decided to fall into fiction without telling the wife at first. When the film was released distributed by ATG it became extremely popular because of the critics of Oshima and the wife sued Imamura so Nikkatsu took the distribution so it would get a wider audience...

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otis
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:43 am

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#36 Post by otis » Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:37 am


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MichaelB
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#37 Post by MichaelB » Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:28 am

otis wrote:Beaver
Shame they couldn't afford Tony Rayns and had to make do with Toby Rains instead. Is he related to Claude?

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otis
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:43 am

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#38 Post by otis » Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:39 am

I wondered the same thing!

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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#39 Post by Finch » Thu Oct 20, 2011 1:06 pm

To be fair to Eric Cotenas, that's probably a one-off spelling mistake while Gary's writing is regularly filled with spelling and grammatical errors, sometimes to the point of making sentences unintelligible.

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otis
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:43 am

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#40 Post by otis » Thu Oct 20, 2011 1:19 pm

Oh absolutely! I didn't mean to take the piss (which is why I didn't mention it with the link), but, as Michael noted, the Claude Rains connection made it amusing (rather than unintelligible, as Gary can indeed be).

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Matango
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:19 am
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#41 Post by Matango » Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:23 pm

Not a one-off, as "Toby" is in there twice.

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Graham
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2011 2:50 pm
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#42 Post by Graham » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:49 am

Extremely minor 'complaint', but I do wish he would learn about paragraphing as I can never be bothered to read a huge chunk of text.

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Ozu Teapot
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#43 Post by Ozu Teapot » Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:16 am

My copy of A Man Vanishes arrived today in the post!

Hopefully The Ballad of Narayama won't be too far behind and I can have an Imamura weekend!

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Cash Flagg
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:15 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#44 Post by Cash Flagg » Mon Oct 24, 2011 9:58 pm

Amazon informed me that they are still awaiting stock, and as a result my estimated arrival date is now between 11/29 and 12/13.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#45 Post by knives » Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:35 pm

Hopefully it means that they're awaiting more stock meaning that it's selling better than expected.

frankiecrisp
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:40 am

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#46 Post by frankiecrisp » Tue Oct 25, 2011 3:17 am

HMV are also waiting for stock of A Man Vanishes and The Ballad of Narayama but you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order. :(

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Forrest Taft
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:34 pm
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#47 Post by Forrest Taft » Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:23 am

frankiecrisp wrote:you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.
If only there was a way to pre-order MoC titles directly from Eureka. Then this wouldn't be a problem. :-"

frankiecrisp
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:40 am

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#48 Post by frankiecrisp » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:50 am

RobertAltman wrote:
frankiecrisp wrote:you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.
If only there was a way to pre-order MoC titles directly from Eureka. Then this wouldn't be a problem.
Just a decent distribution dept to get titles to retailers on release date would do. A top company for product but the distribution dept lets them down.

jbaart
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2010 7:16 pm
Location: Germany

Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#49 Post by jbaart » Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:36 am

RobertAltman wrote:
frankiecrisp wrote:you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.
If only there was a way to pre-order MoC titles directly from Eureka. Then this wouldn't be a problem.
Doesn't help as I was forced to pre-order the Touch of Evil steel from HMV ;)

Having said that, neither of the two imminent releases have shown up yet over here in Germany, despite ordering from MoC. Just a matter of mere days though I hope :)

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perkizitore
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:29 pm
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Re: 113 A Man Vanishes

#50 Post by perkizitore » Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:31 pm

frankiecrisp wrote:HMV are also waiting for stock of A Man Vanishes and The Ballad of Narayama but you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.
That is not true, I remember getting the Metropolis steelbook earlier than the release date.

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